Corey strip-searched for parole hearing

Concerns have been expressed for 63-year-old internee Martin Corey after he was subjected to forced strip-searches both before and after his attendance at a hearing of the Parole Commission this week.

The republican prisoner of conscience is approaching the fourth anniversary of his detention on the basis of “secret evidence” allegedly in the possession of the PSNI police.

Despite having served the equivalent of a six year jail term, it has been two years since his last parole hearing.

In July 2012 a High Court judge ordered Corey’s immediate release, stating his human rights had been violated -- but the British government over-ruled the decision and cancelled Corey’s release.

The Lurgan man has said he is being held without trial because he refused PSNI demands to work as an informer against his republican comrades.

Sinn Fein Assembly member Jennifer McCann said Mr Corey’s human and legal rights had been breached.

“It is well past the time that this man be released and this injustice ended. He, like everyone else, should be entitled to due process under the law and anything less is a breach of his human and legal rights.”

The Release Martin Corey campaign became the top trending subjects on the Twitter social network as an anti-internment campaign took to the internet this week. The decision of the Parole Commission is expected to be made known within weeks.

PRISONERS ‘MUST BE MOVED’

Meanwhile, there have been calls for five republican prisoners to be moved out of Maghaberry Prison’s punishment block and housed with other republicans.

The prisoners in question are Desmond and Thomas Hamill, Austin Creggan, Martin McGilloway and Gavin Coyle, all from County Tyrone. Independent councillor Angela Nelson said the prison should abide by the terms of the 2003 Steele Report, which recommended republican prisoners be separated from loyalists and criminals.

In the isolation block known as “the boards”, the men are locked up for up to 23 hours every day and are denied access to educational and other resources.

The prisoners’ requests to British officials to be transferred to the jail’s Roe House have been refused on the basis they are under threat from other republicans in Roe House -- a claim that is understood to be untrue.

Urgent Appeal